Idolatry to be treated as a capital crime.
This chapter relates to the Israelites themselves. As the government was a theocracy, idolatry in any form was treason against the Divine King, and justly punishable with death. The previous chapter (verses 29-32) affords timely warning against sinful curiosity about heathen practices; and in this chapter the people are warned against all who would tempt them towards idolatry. The three cases mentioned are worthy of separate study.
I. THE FALSE PROPHET, WITH HIS SIGNS AND WONDERS. Moses admits the possibility of signs and wonders in the interests of idolatry. This raises the whole question of miracles. These may be "helps to faith," or they may be "a trial of faith." £ It is evidently in the latter light that they are to be regarded when the wonder-worker wishes to lead them to idolatry. The horror of idolatry is really to fortify them against the miracle, so that, though it may try their faith, it will not overcome it. A miracle in itself, consequently, is not decisive, but must be taken along with the doctrine it proposes to support. God allows the miracle to be wrought by the false prophet to prove his people, "to know whether they love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul" (Deuteronomy 13:3). The false prophet is to be taken, as a criminal convicted of a capital offence, and put to death. He has acted a traitor's part among God's subjects, and must suffer a traitor's doom. By this terrible judgment does God stamp out all tendency to idolatry.
II. THE NEAR RELATIVE AS A SEDUCER TO IDOLATRY. The false prophet might fail, and a near relative succeed. The public miracle, with its meretricious ostentation, might be withstood, while the unostentatious and secret insinuation of a near relative might prevail. Hence the instruction in these verses, 6-11, as to how the idol-loving relative is to be treated. Not only is the insinuation to be put away, but the person making it, no matter how nearly related, is to be treated as a public criminal, and put to death. All the sympathy which blood relationship ensures is to be set aside before this crime of appalling magnitude, and the relative is to cast the first stone at the apostate, the execution being completed by "the hand of all the people."
III. THE APOSTASY OF A CITY. In this collective case, after a careful investigation, the utter destruction of the city is to be carried out, the idolatrous inhabitants are to be put to death, with all their cattle, their property burnt with fire, and the city to be never afterwards rebuilt (Deuteronomy 13:12-18). The idolatry, in propagating itself, must be stamped out even more carefully than in the individual cases of apostasy already mentioned. The sin must not be tolerated in the theocracy.
IV. WE SHOULD SURELY LEARN FROM THIS HOW HEINOUS EVERY KIND OF IDOLATRY IS TO THE MOST HIGH. We may be idolaters through covetousness (Colossians 3:5), through ambition, through any disposition to look for succor to things or persons instead of to God. It may be as needful for us to be exhorted against this sin, as it was for those to whom John in his Epistle wrote, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). The temptation is strong to live by sense and sight instead of by faith. It will help us in withstanding temptation to remember how heinous the sin is! It is not less a sin because now idolaters are not taken out to a public place and executed. We deserve execution, though we do not receive it. For idolatry is high treason against God. When we trust, e.g. in money or in men, so as to attribute to them the powers belonging really to God, we rob him of his rights and bestow them upon others. If this was a capital offence in the Mosaic times, it is no less offensive to the Lord now. He is changeless in his judgments, and so must regard the iniquity as in the same serious light as ever. In such circumstances it surely becomes us—
1. To humble ourselves most penitently before God because of our idolatries. We have been guilty of greater crimes than we suspected, and consequently should entertain the deepest possible penitence.
2. We should carefully abstain from all tendencies to an idolatrous spirit. "Keep yourselves from idols," says John. It shows how much is in our own power. We can abstain from much idolatry, if we are only watchful. In loyalty to God, out of respect for his honor and glory, we ought to keep ourselves in a trustful, humble attitude towards him, and reject every temptation to transfer our allegiance. We shall thus find ourselves going forward steadily in the exercise of spiritual purity and power.—R.M.E.